Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(79)
“I’ll get us to the Tovasheh,” she agreed.
And then, because of the balché and because of the shock and because she was grieving the loss of her crew—even superstitious Callo and murderous Baat and Patu’s eggs and fruit—and because she’d been very much wanting to for almost a week, she leaned in, a matter of only a few feet, and kissed him.
He resisted at first, as if confused, and she wondered if he’d ever been kissed. But then his mouth softened and returned her interest. She climbed onto his lap, straddling his thighs, and kissed him some more. It felt good. His skin was cool, like a welcomed drink of cold water after a day’s work in the summer sun. And he was clumsy, not fatally so but clearly inexperienced, and she liked that, liked that she had the upper hand, that his reaction was so very human. And he felt good and solid and real, his chest against hers, her arms around him, and as long as she was kissing him, she didn’t have to think of impossible sea voyages and dead crewmen and swarms of black birds, just her and this man who she wasn’t sure was a hero or a villain, but maybe she didn’t have to know if only she could get his robe off and—
He stood abruptly, and she rose with him, legs wrapping around his waist.
“Xiala,” he murmured, “I can’t.” He drew his mouth away. She leaned in, aching, not wanting this feeling to end, wanting just a little oblivion between the balché and two bodies, but he pulled back and turned his head.
“Fuck,” she said, dropping her feet to the deck and her arms to her side.
“I can’t.”
She laughed, pretty sure he had taken her expletive literally. Her laugh turned into a hiccup and then a sigh. “Religious affliction?” she asked.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She stood there awkwardly, eyes downcast, the heat of embarrassment coloring her cheeks. Grateful that perhaps he couldn’t see her. But who was she kidding? He was studying her. Listening to her heartbeat, sensing her growing mortification, smelling her arousal or whatever he did to read her so well without the benefit of sight. She thought seriously about having more balché to numb her embarrassment but decided against it, and then commended herself for her amazing feat of will.
“Tova,” he said, urgent.
She glanced up. His hair was tousled from her hands, his lips slightly swollen from being pressed against hers. Definitely a man but perhaps a bit of a monster, too? The same could be said of her. And did it matter at all, these labels and categories, when it was just the two of them here, together?
“I’ll get you to your meeting with the Sun Priest,” she said finally. “I made a promise, after all.”
He seemed satisfied by that. “Do you want to tell me a story?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, surprised at his request. “No, Serapio,” she said, another laugh wanting to break free from the hurt place in her heart. “No stories tonight.”
“All right. Shall I sit with you, anyway? While you Sing to the sea?”
She rubbed at her missing pinkie joint. He was dangerous, unfathomably attractive, and clearly on some single-minded mission that made him entirely unavailable. Oh, Xiala, she thought, tell him to go away. Say no. Say. No.
“Sure.” She dropped to the captain’s bench and patted the space next to her. “I’ve even got a story for you. About a doomed mermaid and the mysterious lover who rejects her. You’ll like it. I swear.”
CHAPTER 27
CITY OF TOVA (COYOTE’S MAW)
YEAR 325 OF THE SUN
(8 DAYS BEFORE CONVERGENCE)
The people of Tova have a love for gameplay. It is manifested most in the varied gambling houses of Coyote’s Maw, and in a very popular dice game called patol. Patol is as popular in Tova as the ball court is in Cuecola. I thought the game only an amusement at first, but my host informed me that the play itself was sacred. They consider it another way to unite earth to the heavens. I pointed out that it was most often played for cacao. He adamantly objected and explained the philosophy to me and with all due patience, but I failed to understand.
—A Commissioned Report of My Travels to the Seven Merchant Lords of Cuecola, by Jutik, a Traveler from Barach
Naranpa thought the golden-haired man would lead her to the balcony where the bosses sat, but instead he took her farther into the gambling house, well past the half-circle walls that marked the front of the roundhouse. Slowly, the crowd thinned, patrons and runners and the smell of drink giving way to empty halls, the scent of earth, and semidarkness.
Resin lanterns were staggered along the floor to light the way. They glowed faintly, only enough to show one where their feet should go. They didn’t ward off the foreboding growing inside her, and it did nothing to counter the reality of going farther underground. Adrenaline from the patol table still lingered in her veins, but now it was making her tired, disoriented, wary of every shadow. The ground sloped down, deeper into the heart of the Maw.
The man glanced over his shoulder once to check on her. She gave him a reassuring nod, but he had already turned away. She found herself struggling with the limited air. Breathe like a Dry Earther, she admonished herself. The air is less here, so deep into the rock. So stop gulping like a spoiled Sky Made. Have you been away that long, Nara?
“How much farther?” she finally asked, her voice thin.